From Western Bloke (formerly Bloke on M4):
I saw Billy Ocean live. I wouldn’t describe myself as a big fan, but the gig was at the park near me and not very expensive, so I went and he was great.
OK. So which year was that? For we’ve also a recently arrived commentator around here, Norman. Who played in Billy Ocean’s touring band. So, did one commentator see the other live?
Nope. I did Billy’s tours of the UK, USA and Japan in ’86 and ’88. The Swindon show was probably long after that. Here, have a laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZA08Ff2HVI&list=PL_9gWeiShHFGbq0EzuopoVq-0Hf1gERXB
I’ll repeat here a comment I’ve just made in reply to Jim on another thread, because it’s pertinent.
I did a surprising amount of music work in the 80’s but if you look on IMDB you won’t find me. Everything I did, recordings and gigs, has been credited to other people. As far as the Internet is concerned I didn’t have a music career and you won’t be able to find me unless you know what I look like and see me in the relatively few videos I was in.
Now multiply that by the entire population. And they think Big Data is a good idea. GIGO.
Mate of mine was involved in the music biz in London in the late 80s. Managed UK gigs for US acts like Alexander O’Neal, various US rappers etc etc.
I think this was one of the tours he did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Fr-aQZd-s
Here, have a laugh
Looks like a cracking gig to me!
We’d been touring for over four months by then and were in practice. Good rhythm section, too.
I did stuff on the wireless, but IMDB ignores that, so I effectively don’t exist.
Norman @ 10.24, not my thing, but at least it’s a black guy singing something pleasant, rather than ho’s, drugs, guns, jacking up, fast cars, bling etc. etc. (cont.p94).
Got back from the Marillion weekend in Port Zelande last night. Fantastic.
I do enjoy the range of experience and expertise regularly displayed here. For obvious reasons I am not in the swim.
Addolff’s reference to Private Eye prompts me to ask: does anyone here still read the Eye, and has it recovered? I read the magazine religiously from the late 1960s and gave up after two experiences.
First, a friend and I had excellent evidence of a major scandal which might have gone high, but it would have conflicted with a fevered narrative of the time. The Eye refused to even look at it.
Next, I waited several months for ClimateGate to be even mentioned. In vain, of course.
And that was that.
Addolff, indeed Billy has a good and pleasant voice and could write decent songs. Often a tiny bit sharp on stage but this was before in-ear monitoring and live autotune. My other boss Errol was often sharp onstage, too.
Somewhere in my garage I have a collection of cassette recordings of many of these shows, recorded off the desk. They’re probably unplayable now. As MD, on the bus the following morning it was my job to listen to the previous night’s show, note stuff that needed improvement, and rehearse it that that day’s sound check.
This sometimes had repercussions when some of the band members had been smoking grass all day.
Perhaps I should add that Fleet Street, as a body refused to look at the scandal, which a number of qualified people, and criminal lawyers, took very seriously.
The BBC came close to commissioning a documentary, which my friend was well qualified to produce. Management killed it, which told us all something about the Establishment.
Care to allude to the scandal? Cricketing terms will do. They used to come in very handy when male conversation was taking place with females present. We usually understood what was meant.
The Other Bloke in Italy @ 3.57pm
I still get the Private Eye, I recently saw it described as a left-wing comic – its hard to disagree with that statement.
There is occasional decent content and the crossword is still good.
I subscribed to the Eye for 40 years, but kicked it into touch a couple of years ago. They used to be equal opportunity attack dogs, no longer.
I gave up with it decades ago. I found the jokes no longer funny, and the stories of local authority grift just became unremittingly depressing. My outlook immediately improved on giving it up. And I was still a lefty then.
@Norman
“I have a collection of cassette recordings of many of these shows, recorded off the desk. They’re probably unplayable now.”
I’ve been ripping a large collection (5000+) of music cassettes left by my Dad, many 40-50 years old.
To date, I have successfully played every one, though some need intervention.
Shout if you wanna try and what works best.
But key tips are:
0. Fast spool forwards full length and then back, before trying to play.
1. Decent HiFi cassette deck. I bought a reconditioned Technics on Amazon.
2. When necessary, crack open the case and put the tape (temporarily maybe) in a higher quality shell, such as a blank tape. Those are usually screw-fastened and have proper rollers. Your tapes are home-recorded, so the opening will be easy!
3. PTFE tape. Amazon sold me 10m of 1cm wide self adhesive tape, intended for furniture drawer runners for a few quid. Not to be confused with the plumbers stuff!
A 4mm strip, mounted on the pressure pad works wonders.
4. Last resort: open the case, spray the spooled tape with dry silocone lubricant (WD-40 Silicone) and allow to dry out for a few days (The dry lubricant is in a liquid carrier). You may need to wipe the leader with IPA on a cotton bud to stop it slipping, but this has recovered some 50 awful hard cases.
The IPA/cotton bud treatment can also be used in spot cases, when the tape drops out or otherwise misbehaves. Holding a casette, two buds (one each side) and a biro to spin the spool makes me envy octopi.
Give it a go, those old cassettes of your may be a treasure trove!
2013. Longer ago than I thought. He’d have been early 60s then. Hazell Dean was supporting, who had a couple of decent dance hits. It’s always a lovely thing to go to the sort of “yeah, why not gig” and get really impressed. I remember chaperoning my neighbour’s daughter to Interpol, and loving the support band (Secret Machines).
“Addolff’s reference to Private Eye prompts me to ask: does anyone here still read the Eye, and has it recovered? I read the magazine religiously from the late 1960s and gave up after two experiences.”
Only via other people on the internet pointing out all the stuff they get wrong.
The thing I twigged after a while is that Ian Hislop is the sort of guy who sounds plausible, has confidence, think’s he’s clever, but doesn’t really know anything. They got absolutely hoodwinked by Andrew Wakefield, to a level that was just embarrassing.
It’s also the sort of area where the internet just did better. Bloggers, substackers etc who actually know their subjects, do their research. Yes, there’s lots of bellends, but the best of t’net beats Private Eye.
Thanks, TtC. Off the top of my head I have plenty of Hot Chocolate showtapes from ’83 and maybe ’86; some of Billy’s from ’86 and ’88; perhaps Alison Moyet showtapes from ’84. Oh, and some extremely early Prefab Sprout stuff. And, er, some Alvin Stardust rough mixes. And other unmentionables including recordings with the band that became Right Said Fred, and stuff on the Crass label. A varied old life, and that’s not all. Oh, Björk.
Norman, I have not lost sight of the matter, and have no doubt that the slime continues to flow, so I will be coy.
Think young boys and blackmail, and a distracting panic, and you may come close.
My TV producer friend was later the object of a murder attempt, and I came under some pressure. The first may be unrelated, the second was not.
Mmm. My fraying memory only recalls some prominent people indicted by a later-discredited fantasist. I wonder whether they were cover for someone else?
Funnily enough I’m going to see Alison Moyet in a couple of months
Norman, Hall of Mirrors, old boy. Be thankful you were deep enough into the music business to have a good time. At a certain level, things may happen which are bad for the soul.
Night
I did the entire backing track note- and sound-perfect for “Only You”, which we did as an encore. All live keyboard playing and programming. I was quite proud of that effort because I didn’t exactly have a Rick Wakeman-sized rig. It’s all Prophet T8, Yamaha DX7, Roland TR606 and TB303.
Unbeknownst to me the BBC recorded at least one of the shows at the Dominion Theatre just before Christmas ’84 and broadcast it. A couple of those tracks turned up on the Alf Deluxe Edition CD. I’ve never seen extra fees or royalties for that. C’est la vie.
Right, I’ll leave it there, my Italian friend.
One thing I’ll say is that during the month spent rehearsing for Billy’s ’86 tour Gary Glitter was rehearsing too, and was never out of costume or character. Quite weird when getting egg & chips in the rehearsal studio cafe. Always had a strange vibe to him.
Tim/Norman
The other terribly important thing about cassettes is that head alignment is crucial – narrow tracks, moving slowly: if the playback head isn’t at exactly the same angle (should be 90 degrees) to the recording head used to make the recording, you will lose high frequency and the music will be smudged for want of a better term.
So think about getting a Nakamichi CR2A or other deck that has controllable playback head azimuth control; prolly best to do this after finding out the tapes are playable
Best o’luck!
I’ve been trying to recover some data from computer cassettes from the ’80s. This advice is probably going to be useful for this as well.
TtC, are you in the South East anywhere?
Tejas bloke, thanks for that. Yes, head alignment, test tones and degaussing. Analogue fun.
@jgh It helps. If all else fails, there is the Home Computer Museum in Eindhoven, ran by a mate of mine.
Proper bunch of Nerds, safeguarding a *massive* and impressive stack of soft- and hardware.
If that lot can’t tell you exactly what you need, how to do it, and how to transfer stuff over many generations onto current hardware/data carrier… no-one can.
Or they most likely know the one bloke left in the world who does know.
@Norman
Yes, Hampshire/M3
TtC: Ah, that’s handy. Know it well. Tim, could you put us in contact, please?
There’s also the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester. Good bunch of people, you can go and play games on dozens of old machines there. I donated ten or so Spectrums and a dozen or so other computers and accessories, plus many hundreds of games on cassette, few years ago. They go through each one and back it up and then treat/preserve the originals.